Quintus McCormick Blues Band: Put It on Me!

Quintus McCormick waited fifteen years to enter the studio with his blues band and record a debut album that swung with a soul-blues swagger on a par with the likes of the underrated Ted Taylor or the better known Little Johnny Taylor. Thankfully, the Chicago-based band’s follow-up is with us in just under two years later.

Put It on Me! boasts another 15 solid originals that showcase McCormick’s versatile vocals as he moves from smooth operating soul balladeer (“Say Love”) to low-down bluesman (“Lady Blue”). The Chicago Horns once again drop in occasionally with bursts of bright soul revue brass. At times this reviewer wished McCormick would reign in the electric blues guitar pyrotechnics, especially on the bridge of “How Quick We Forget”, but those moments are few and far between. When he does hold back, as on the more tightly structured soul-blues ballad “Change”, McCormick is hard to beat.